I want you to go to the Marketplace and sit down. If you look around I guarantee you’ll see a couple of different things. You’ll see a group of friends having lunch and they’ll all be looking at their cellphones. You’ll see a child running and screaming like the heathen it is. You’ll see a middle school soccer team celebrating their tenth place trophy with ice cream because they tried their best. This is the face of our generation, the Millennial Generation.
If you were born between 1980 and 2000, then you are part of the Millennial Generation which pewsocialtrends.org describes as “relatively unattached to organized politics and religion”, “racially diverse” and “optimistic about the future”. While this description of our generation may be true, I have noticed some of our more negative traits.
The first is impatience. The rapid evolution of technology throughout our generation’s lifetime has created a place where anything you want can be delivered instantly. Websites like Google that bring you volumes of information in a matter of seconds or Amazon that delivers items to your front door. As a generation that is growing with this technology, we have gotten used to the idea of not having to wait for anything.
In her article Technology and Children found on allianceforchildhood.org, Marilyn B. Benoit, M.D. says, “The emerging mantra of this technological era is ‘wait no more!’[…] Now E-mail and instant messaging have created an expectation of rapid communication. What has ensued is the experience of impatience…”
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard people complain about the fact that they have some number of years left before they get their degree or that they actually have to wait once they get a job to be promoted. We need to accept the fact that life isn’t your phone or computer, it won’t reward you instantly.
Our next flaw is a need to be unique no matter what. As children we were told that everyone is special and different like snowflakes, which is true to an extent. But combine this with the Internet that helped us realize that the world is a very big place with a lot of people and we wonder if it’s really true.
People in the Millennial Generation understand that they are one person in about 7 billion but they still want to be a special little snowflake. How do they manage? They begin to put so much metal in their face they look like a magnet’s wet dream. Or they tattoo every inch of their body and say that the fish on their neck symbolizes strength… or that time they went fishing. What people like this don’t realize is that when everyone is trying to be unique it’s just conformity with a lip piercing and a fish tattooed on its neck.
The final and probably worst defining characteristic of our generation is a feeling of being entitled to everything. This, again, stems from a society that gives children awards for participation. The Millennial Generation has grown up being rewarded for participating so they don’t feel bad about not getting MVP and because of this we enter the workforce with a serious flaw. When a coworker gets a raise or promotion for hard work someone feels that because they have been flipping patties for a couple months they too deserve something.
The harsh truth is they haven’t done anything worthy of a reward, they were just doing their job. Life doesn’t reward participation; it doesn’t pat you on the back when you do a job the same as everyone else does. Life overlooks mediocrity and our generation needs to realize that in order to be recognized, people must do extraordinary things.